NYAPRS Note: There’s been some local, union and legislator push back to the NYS Office of Mental Health’s plan to reconfigure state operated inpatient and outpatient services to create specialized regional Centers of Excellence and enhanced outpatient service ‘hubs’ that best meet the needs and utilization patterns of surrounding localities. But the state is doing no differently than the “largest integrated health system in New York State and the 14th largest healthcare system in the United States” and the largest employer on Long Island.Headed by the co-chair of New York’s Medicaid Redesign Team Michael Dowling, North Shore-LIJ is phasing out unneeded, costly inpatient beds at one of its 16 hospitals and turning it into an outpatient complex with a strong emergency department. As we move steadily towards managed integrated of its services, New York State’s public mental health system will ultimately need to follow suit and reorient services to make the most sense and to be as responsive, vital and cost effective as possible.

Glen Cove To Become ED, Outpatient Facility

Crain’s Health Pulse July 31, 2013

North Shore-LIJ is turning one of its Long Island hospitals into an outpatient medical complex, phasing out 265 licensed inpatient beds starting in January 2014. The system held town hall meetings yesterday with employees of the facility, Glen Cove Hospital. The action is part of a broader cost-cutting trend, but also reflects a move away from hospital care to outpatient settings. Glen Cove's average daily census is about 90 beds.

North Shore-LIJ was "making tough decisions sooner rather than later to meet future health care needs and create a robust ambulatory care facility," said a spokesman.

There may be more hospital repurposing ahead for the system. In June, North Shore-LIJ President and CEO Mike Dowling said in a speech that in two years, two of the system's hospitals would close their beds because of falling hospitalization rates. The spokesman said he was unaware of plans to close another underutilized hospital in the system by 2014 but called it "not beyond the realm of possibility."

Glen Clove will have a 24-hour emergency department, a community health and outreach center, outpatient cancer and ambulatory surgery care, and an imaging center. Several inpatient programs will be relocated, with orthopedics shifting to Syosset Hospital, for example. North Shore-LIJ has not yet determined what will happen to the actual building. The system will offer the hospital's 1,200 workers other jobs; it hires about 100 new employees weekly.

The vast North Shore-LIJ system plans to eliminate about $300 million in expenses by 2014 because of reimbursement cuts, including sequestration cuts that will cost the health system about $87 million to $97 million annually. "We have to deliver a better product at a lower cost," Mr. Dowling said in his speech.